SuperPAC Ad Claims Obama Is Working To "Force Gay Marriage" On U.S.

A new ad from the Campaign for American Values SuperPAC’s advertisement claims that President Obama is trying “to force gay marriage on the country.” The couple in the ad say that isn’t the “change” they voted for, a claim that overstates Obama’s position on the issue.

The ad, was first reported by by New York Observer’s Politicker which tied the ad to Gary Bauer, the evangelical political leader.

Obama has said that he personally supports marriage equality, and he and his attorney general, Eric Holder, have concluded that the federal definition limiting “marriage” under federal law to one man and one woman is unconstitutional. As such, the Department of Justice has stopped defending that provision of the Defense of Marriage Act in court challenges.

Neither Obama nor the administration have taken a position on whether states should be forced to allow same-sex couples to marry, although the legal underpinning of the administration’s position on DOMA is nearly the same as that advanced by LGBT advocacy organizations in advancing legal claims to require marriage equality.

The Democratic Party platform, formally released on Monday night, includes support for marriage equality as a plank in the platform for the first time.

Over at the gay conservative group GOProud, executive director Jimmy LaSalvia told BuzzFeed, “[T]he ad has the production value of a public access TV show.”

Substantively, he also dismissed the effort: “It appears to be an effort to aid the Obama re-election efforts, because it is totally off message from anything that the Romney-Ryan campaign is talking about. Every moment not spent talking about jobs and the economy is doing exactly what the Democrats want.”